Today in the Montgomery County Courthouse outside of Philadelphia, Judge Steven O’Neill announced that five women will be allowed to testify against Bill Cosby when his second trial gets started on April 2. The 80-year-old comedian is facing three counts of felony indecent sexual assault after a former Temple University employee accused him of drugging and raping her in his Philadelphia home in 2004. The first trial against Cosby ended in a hung jury in June of last year.

The judge told prosecutors that they’ll be permitted to call up to five of Cosby’s accusers to take the stand out of about 19 witnesses they hoped to call in the case. It was not yet announced which women will be testifying.

This is a major blow to Cosby and his defense team, led by L.A. attorney Tom Mesereau, who is famous for representing Michael Jackson. The defense team had initially asked the judge to throw out the case. When they were unsuccessful, they opposed the prosecution’s request to call additional accusers to the stand citing the statute of limitations.

Today’s decision came after the California Supreme Court rejected Bill Cosby’s request to appeal a court decision by one of his most famous accusers just yesterday. Late last year, the state’s Second Appellate District court said that former model Janice Dickinson could use a press release and letter from the 80-year-old comedian’s team suggesting she is a liar to move forward with her case against Cosby. The comedian’s lawyers fought the ruling and lost. The latest decision also now allows Dickinson to add Marty Singer, Cosby’s former lawyer, as a witness in her civil case.

Janice Dickinson admits to fabricating part of Bill Cosby drug-rape allegation in memoir

Former super model Janice Dickinson has appeared in court to testify against Bill Cosby in a drugging and rape case, where she admitted to making up a story that appears in her memoir in order to protect herself.

Dickinson, 63, took to the stand in a Pennsylvania courtroom that sees Cosby, 80, on retrial on three separate accounts of sexual assault.

She recalled the incident in 1982 that took place in a Californian hotel room whereby the star was drugged and raped by the comedian.

‘Here was “America’s Dad” on top of me — a happily married man with five children,’ Dickinson said. ‘And I remember thinking how wrong it was — how very, very wrong,’ she revealed to the jury. ‘It was gross,’ she said, as she described passing out during the assault at the hands of Cosby.

Dickinson confirmed that she actually confronted Cosby the following day about the assault, only for him to deny it had ever taken place.

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Cosby appearing in court. (Getty)
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According to her testimony, she was furious at the star for attacking her: ‘I wanted to hit him,’ she said. ‘I wanted to punch him in the face.’

But it was when Cosby’s attorney, Tom Mesereau, confronted her regarding a 2002 ghostwritten memoir, titled No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World’s First Supermodel, that her stories appeared to conflict with one another.

When he held up her book and revealed the account in there was very different to what she is saying in court, Dickinson admitted that the contents of the book was a fabrication: “It’s all a fabrication there because I wanted the paycheck for my kids,’ she said, after telling the court that she’d given her ghostwriter ‘poetic licence’. In the book, it describes her having rebuffed Cosby’s advances before popping a couple of Quaaludes (a sedative) and going to sleep.

Cosby’s lawyer attacked her mixed stories, by saying: ‘So you made things up to get a paycheck?’

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Janice Dickinson appearing at Bill Cosby’s retrial. (Getty)
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She then reiterated that, when appearing in court, she differentiated between the two occasions: ‘I put my hand on the Bible and I swore. I wasn’t under oath when I wrote the book.’

Dickinson cited that she removed Cosby’s name from the book at the request of her publisher because it could’ve ruined her career.

The discrepancy is seen by some as a major blow to the case, but it doesn’t change the fact that a number of women have made claims against the once popular star.

"During cross-examination, a defence lawyer seized on discrepancies between Ms Dickinson’s testimony and what she wrote about their encounter in her 2002 autobiography.

She told jurors she wanted to include details about the assault, but Mr Cosby and his lawyers pressured her to tell a highly sanitised version in which there was no sex at all, let alone a rape.

Ms Dickinson said she went along because she needed the money — and feared The Cosby Show actor would ruin her career.

“It’s all a fabrication there,” she said. “It was written by ghostwriters. I wanted a paycheck.”

Ms Dickinson is one of five additional accusers whom prosecutors are calling to the stand to show Mr Cosby had a history of drugging and molesting women long before he was charged with violating Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.

The 80-year-old comedian says his sexual encounter with Ms Constand was consensual. His first trial ended in a hung jury."

"On the stand, Ms Dickinson said she got to know Mr Cosby after he called her agent and said he wanted to meet and possibly mentor her as she looked to expand her career into singing and acting.

The first accuser to testify, Heidi Thomas, said she met Mr Cosby the same way.

Ms Dickinson said he invited her to Lake Tahoe after an initial meeting at his New York City townhouse, where he had given her an acting manual. Mr Cosby tracked her down to Bali, where she was modelling for an oil company calendar, and asked her to Lake Tahoe “to further talk about my career.” In Tahoe, she tested her vocal range with the entertainer’s musical director, watched Mr Cosby perform and then joined the two men for dinner at the hotel.

That’s where she started to get cramps, she said, and Mr Cosby produced a little blue pill. She took it and soon became woozy and “slightly out of it.”

Ms Dickinson had a Polaroid camera with her, she said, and snapped photos of Cosby in the room wearing a colourful robe and talking on the telephone. Then he pounced.

“Shortly after I took the pictures and he finished the conversation, he got on top of me,” Ms Dickinson said. “His robe opened up ... I couldn’t move.

“I didn’t fly to Tahoe to have sex with Mr Cosby.”"

"Ms Constand, who will take the stand later in the trial, alleges Cosby gave her pills and molested her. The defence says she set him up to score a big payday. Cosby settled her civil suit for $4.4 million."

Irrespective, what person pays 4.4 million to someone when they have done "nothing" and have "nothing to hide.

on Monday, as Cosby approached the courthouse, a topless woman jumped the barricade cordoning off protesters, stopping him in his tracks. She was tackled by police officers seconds after crossing the barrier and detained.

The woman was later identified by police as Nicolle Rochelle, 39, an actress who appeared on several episodes of "The Cosby Show" from 1990 to 1992 under the name Nicole Leach.

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Nicolle Rochelle - also Nicole Leach - is an actor and prominent member of European feminist group Femen, known for staging topless protests.

The 39-year-old leaped over a barricade and made for Cosby, 80, and a bank of TV cameras at the start of his retrial on Monday.

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Dramatic images showed Rochelle being taken down by sheriff's deputies before she was charged with disorderly conduct.

"The main goal was to make Cosby uncomfortable," Rochelle, of Little Falls, New Jersey, told reporters. "That is exactly what he has been doing for decades to women."

If they were not going to revoke his bail, I feel they should have required him to weae an ankle monitor. He has been convicted of 3 serious felonies and he certainly has the financial resources to flee and even forfit his one million dollar bail..

NORRISTOWN, Pa. -- A judge on Friday ordered Bill Cosby to remain in his suburban Philadelphia home and be fitted with a GPS monitor until he is sentenced on sexual assault charges. Judge Steven O'Neill's request was filed Friday, a day after a jury found Cosby guilty of drugging and molesting Andrea Constand in 2004.

The 80-year-old Cosby was convicted on three counts of felony indecent aggravated assault. He faces 10 years in prison on each count, but it's not clear whether any sentences imposed may run concurrently.

O'Neill had suggested Thursday that Cosby would be allowed to move around Montgomery County, where his home is located. The modified order said he can leave his house only to meet with his lawyers or to get medical treatment but must get permission before doing so.

Cosby remains free on $1 million bail. He maintains his innocence. He kept out of sight and was spending time with his wife of 54 years, Camille, in the wake of his conviction...